Bhattacharya et al. present evidence that expansion of the North American Monsoon explains a wetter southwest in the mid-Pliocene and suggest this mechanism can explain current monsoon variations.
paleoclimatology & paleoceanography
Posted inNews
El Niño Varies More Intensely Now Than in the Past Millennium
Researchers found evidence for a strengthening El Niño in living and fossilized Galápagos corals.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Clumped 18O –18O in Ice Reveals Past Ozone and Wildfire
Reactive gases like ozone are hard to preserve, but clumped isotopes and models provide clues to past ozone and suggest a global increase in wildfire at megafaunal extinction.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Long-Lived Lakes Reveal a History of Water on Mars
High-resolution imagery of newly discovered paleolakes shows a period of consistent liquid water flow.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
New Mechanism for “Giant” Greigite Growth in Deep-Sea Sediments
Understanding greigite formation pathways in sediments is a prerequisite for assessing the marine iron-sulfur-carbon cycle and yield reliable near-syn-sedimentary paleomagnetic records.
Posted inNews
Did a Chaotic Climate Drive Human Evolution?
A new 620,000-year climate record from East Africa reveals dramatic swings between wet and dry conditions that may have influenced human evolution.
Posted inNews
A Mysterious Dome Reveals Clues to Australia’s Miocene History
The Nullarbor Plain has been relatively untouched by geological forces, leaving traces of the continent’s deep past.
Posted inNews
Ancient Nile Tributary May Have Aided Pyramid Construction
Pollen from sediment cores shows that a now dry channel cutting through Giza was once a flowing waterway that Egyptian pyramid builders could have used to transport supplies.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Glacier Advance and Retreat: Insights From the Top of the World
New dating of glacial features reveals predictable glacier behavior in response to climate warming and cooling in the Everest region in the past 8,000 years.
Posted inScience Updates
A Post-Impact Deep Freeze for Dinosaurs
New research supports the hypothesis that dinosaurs were done in by climate change after an asteroid impact kicked up a massive plume of sulfur gases that circled the globe for several decades.